Qualifying Leads

Qualifying leads is a very important part of the sales process.

The concept is straightforward. Do not spend your valuable time attempting to sell to people who are not qualified to be your customer. Your time should be spent with prospects that you have a fair shot at selling.

Before you can qualify leads as those who meet your requirements, determine what “qualified” means to you. For years, I would not spend time with any prospect unless they clearly had a need, a budget and could make a decision. Without investing too much time you can ask a few questions to your prospect to determine if they are qualified and to what degree they are qualified to do business with you.

Here are some common sense ideas to consider when qualifying prospects.

Need

From your experience, you already know the profile of a good customer. They may really need what you are selling but don’t see the value. The chance you take by spending time with an “unaware of their needs” prospect is that they may never understand and you will have wasted your time. The solution is to invest a few minutes in a great consultative sales call by phone or in person to get them to acknowledge their needs. You accomplish this by asking probing questions and getting them to agree that they need what you have to sell.

Budget

There are business cycles where prospects are not inclined to spend money. Just like prospects that don’t see a need for your product or service; they may not see any value in buying from you. Assuming you are offering something of value that streamlines operations, cuts costs or creates revenue, it is up to you to engage in a consultative conversation to get the prospect thinking right about the value they will enjoy by working with you. Qualifying the budget might be as simple as offering terms or waiting until next month when they will have the money.

Decision Making

Decision making is a formidable roadblock to the sales process. If you spend time working a non-decision maker you are probably wasting your time. The non-decision maker, at best, will tell your story to the decision maker if they are convinced that you have something of value to consider. I don’t want to rely on a non-decision maker to tell my story to their boss. The facts will surely be mixed up or omitted and questions will go unanswered. A good strategy here is to ask your contact who the decision maker is and insist that they participate in your process.

It’s Your Call

Who you chase and under what circumstances you launch your campaigns is your call. I have successfully pursued opportunities that were less than qualified based on a sense or feeling that I could make the sale.

I guess the rule of thumb is that if you’re flush with highly qualified leads you can enforce strict rules. Common sense says that if your sales funnel is empty, you should work less than qualified leads.

More Leads

The best strategy to increase the number of qualified leads in your sales funnel is to prospect for more leads. (Duh!) There are some powerful emerging tools and tactics that will help you to increase your volume of sales opportunities.

More to Come…